I broke ground in early March and then
witnessed the last snowstorm of the year two weeks later. I
did a lot of digging and it seemed like I had moved a lot of
dirt. I laid out the perimeter of the room. It amounted to a
trench forty feet in perimeter, more than a foot deep and
two feet wide. That’s about 80 cubic feet of dirt - enough
dirt to pack four normal sized refrigerators full. It wasn’t
nearly enough. The frost line in my area is 32 inches below
ground. Anything more shallow and the ground under my
foundation could freeze and cause the entire foundation to
shift.
I was going crazy. I’d dig and dig and
check how much progress I’d made and find I had moved only
another two inches. I wasn’t sure if my project was ever
going to get started because I didn’t know if I could ever
shovel enough dirt out of the way. Finally, I got a friend
who works construction to bring in a backhoe and finish the
trench. What would have taken me weeks, he accomplished in
15 minutes.
After this, I had to pour concrete for
a footer and then lay cinder block. This was time consuming
and the weather was not cooperative. That year was one of
the wettest on record for our area. You can’t lay cinder
blocks and then let it rain on them. So there were a number
of days that I couldn’t work.
Finally, in May my foundation was
finished and I was ready to start the actual frame
construction. The floor was finished in a couple of hours.
The walls took a day. The roof was two days’ work with the
help of a professional. After laboring on my foundation for
two months, I saw my room take shape in about a week.
The foundation is an often overlooked
aspect in evangelism. Just like no one ever says, “that’s a
pretty nice foundation you laid for your house,” no one is
going to pay much attention to our foundation for
evangelism. However, this does not make it any less
critical.
As I said, if the foundation for my
room wasn’t deep enough, the ground below could have shifted
it. If my foundation would shift, I could get cracks in my
drywall. Or worse, a corner of my room could sink in
entirely. Everything that I had worked so hard for would be
messed up because I didn’t take the time to lay a proper
foundation.
We run across the same situation in
evangelism. Just like I was eager to get my room underway
and I wanted to see results, we want to get out into the
world and start making a difference.
I have a problem with patience. I often rationalize in my
mind that what I want done should get done as quickly as
possible because only God knows if I’m going to be here
tomorrow. This means I get quickly frustrated when I see
things get in the way of what I think God wants to get done.
What I often forget is that God’s
timetable is not mine. If God wants to speed something
along, he is quite capable of doing so, regardless of my
effort or lack thereof. Oftentimes I am so eager to start a
project that I fail to take the proper steps to prepare for
it. Only when the project stalls or fails altogether do I
begin to realize what I should have done to begin with.
So we need a solid foundation for evangelism. If we dash out
into the world, ready to change lives, without any kind of
foundation, we are going to see results that we do not
desire. If you’ve been fired up for evangelism before, only
to see things turn out poorly, your foundation may be the
reason why.
Next Section -
Three
Simple Facts
